OpenEvidence Hits $15 Billion Valuation in Back-to-Back Round

OpenEvidence, the AI search engine for doctors, has raised $250 million at a $15 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter. Hospital systems and Andreessen Horowitz provided the funding.

The round lands less than a year after the company's January raise, which valued it at $12 billion. OpenEvidence, based in Miami, has now pulled in more than $1 billion over the past twelve months from investors including Thrive Capital, DST, GV, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia Capital.

The startup, founded in 2022 and led by CEO Dr. Daniel Nadler, has called its AI-powered search engine "the fastest-growing application for physicians in history." More than two-thirds of U.S. doctors rely on the product for diagnostic and treatment advice, according to the company.

An acquisition target with conditions

OpenEvidence could be open to an M&A deal that includes access to compute, according to a person familiar with the matter. Compute could become scarcer if rising anti-AI sentiment curbs data center expansion, that person said. It could not be verified whether potential acquirers have expressed interest, and the company may prefer to remain independent.

As an acquisition, OpenEvidence would offer a rare shortcut. It already has doctors using its product daily, experience handling sensitive medical information, and a foothold in a market that AI companies increasingly want to own.

Giants closing in

The new funding round comes as OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI giants push deeper into healthcare. Instead of just providing the models that power other companies' products, they increasingly build healthcare tools of their own.

OpenEvidence sits at the center of that competition's infrastructure. It maintains relationships with several of the largest technology companies and counts Nvidia as an investor. Anthropic announced a partnership with the company this week. OpenEvidence integrates with both Google's and Microsoft's AI tools.

The M&A backdrop

The round arrives amid a wave of major AI deals. Nvidia agreed to buy HuggingFace for nearly $13 billion in August, and Stripe is finalizing an approximately $8 billion purchase of OpenRouter, as the race to acquire AI talent stays hot.

For OpenEvidence, the $15 billion price tag raises a straightforward question for the AI giants circling healthcare: buy the doctor-facing distribution now, or keep building it from scratch while the company keeps raising money at ever-higher valuations.